My friend Jeanie and I took my son Stephen and his friend Sam for a hike. At the beginning of the hike, I noticed a plant with a red stem growing on the edge of the trail and stopped to take a picture of it. As I did this, I mentioned to Jeanie that I was collecting pictures of red. Stephen and Sam ran up to see what I was doing. Jeanie said, “She is taking pictures of red in nature.”

For the rest of the hike we heard:

“Mom, here’s something red.”

“Miss Ann, this is red.”

“I found more red.”

“This is red, isn’t it?”

They found acorn centers, new leaves, seed pods, and more.

I could feel their excitement as we stopped, leaned down, and investigated their red discoveries. And when I took a picture of the new red item, their sense of accomplishment was visible.

Next time you take children into a natural setting, give them an assignment—look for green, red, yellow, look for spheres, triangles, squares, look for things that are soft, hard, mushy—and then enjoy their discoveries.